Tag Archives: MVDVisual

“The EVIL Dead of Hawaii!” “Day of the Wicked” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Day of the Wicked” Now on DVD!

Down on his luck John Jones finds work at a special construction job, restoring an old Japanese school house in the outskirts of Hawaii.  Excited to work with his longtime friend Chelsea, he arrives days ahead to stay in the old schoolhouse after going through an ugly divorce and losing his car to maintenance issues.  Jones stumbles upon the book of the dead, the Necronomicon, and it consumes his soul to do the bidding of an evil Kane, the former school master who took the soul of 35 school children and looks to return to the corporeal realm to do more soul taking.  When the rest of the workers arrive days later, Jones’s already peculiar behavior is magnified by call of the Necronomicon’s influence, and he is constantly bullied by the other workers to a breaking point of Jones using the book to summon demons from out the netherworld and possess them.  All hell breaks loose on the school grounds and with bodies succumbing to evil possession, those left will have to stop Jones and Kane before it’s too late. 

Borrowing concepts and ideas to integrate, pretty deliberately, into their own film, Blake and Brent Cousins, under their merged directorial title of the Cousin Brothers, director the demonic action-horror  “Day of the Wicked” where a group of unfortunate souls find themselves isolated in the middle of the woods during the opening of a gateway to hell.  In fact, the 2024 U.S. feature is a squeal or remake of their 1991 SOV debut film “Slaughter Day” that roughly follows the same plotline with construction workers in Hawaii.  The two films are  written by the brothers who have since specialized over the years helming extraterrestrial documentaries, such as “Who Saw Men in Black” and “Nexus to Disclosure:  The Truth is Classified,” as well as navigating their own individual talents with Blake Cousins’ editor role on “Rising Dead”” and Brent Cousins taking on the cinematography role with mostly in the documentary field.  Like its predecessor, The Cousins Brothers remake was too filmed on the Big Island of Hawaii.

“Day of the Wicked” is mostly filled with island locals who’ve only worked with the Cousin Brothers or haven’t seen the front end of a lens before.  The story surrounds centralized sympathetic villain John Jones, played by Gabe Hernandez who last worked with the brothers on “Rising Dead” over 25 years ago, who must teeter the line on being the oddball punching bag for blue collar construction workers and the driving force that unleashes unholiness in dimension-splitting troves.  Like the rest of the cast, Hernandez has forced articulation that’s more exclamatory than natural as he splices the efforts between good guy and bad guy.  Jones serves the rousing Kane (Jean Louis Goff), a 3rd world knockoff of Julian Beck’s “Poltergeist II” character of the same name.  Named the same and dressed very similar with long black church clothes and wide brim hat, Kane seldomly evokes the same sinister strength witnessed by a very feeble Julian Beck at the time of filming “Poltergeist II,” resulting in one of the most unforgettable and haunting characters haling from the 80s.  “Day of the Wicked’s” Kane doesn’t have the lingering appeal and is barely skimmed at the surface, heavily relying on Gabe Hernandez to be the vessel of evil.  The vessel of good is another story as there’s no real hero or protagonist for the role other than Gabe’s childhood friend Chelsea, a fruit stand shift worker who doesn’t express her qualifications working at a construction site other than her electrician friend Gabe.  Actress Chelsea J. Schaffer, in her namesake role, has slightly better acting intuition compared to some of her cast mates but her primary objective in the movie is to defend John Jones against the bullies with her secondary objective to flee the quickly succumbing demonic supernaturality structure.  The cast fills out with construction workers doing more horseplay and gossip than actual work with Cameron Cousins, Bryan Gazaui, Trent Carrier, Orlando Smith and rounding out with the local Sheriff in Doc Skinner with Guy Pohlman and Apolla Asteria as Hollywood-based researchers of the Necronomicon. 

“Slaughter Day” draws from “The Evil Dead” series with unmistakable measure but it’s three decades later sequel and/or remake, “Day of the Wicked,” adds a plumpier version of “Poltergeist II’s” Reverend Henry Kane to the mix, down to the full black pastor suit, wide brim hat, and white hair, to be the in tandem driving evil force with the shoddily constructed, Temu version of The Book of the Dead, the Necronomicon, that supplies the unstable and unloved Joe Jones his sinister powers of conjuring and psychokinetic manipulation.  From there, the Cousin Brothers’ endearing effort to re-envision their 1991 film, an endearing effort in itself, aims to reach a different, more contemporary, audience generation that make retroactively work toward their debut production.  Another difference, and perhaps even a downgrade to an extent, is “Day of the Wicked” shies away from most practical effects for more visual effects that does no harm to structures, puts no actors in compromising makeup, sprays Coke can’s worth of blood, and looks about as authentic as a backwards Nike logo.  Yet, with all the cringy acting and dialogue, the rehashed storyline, and little-to-no practical effects whatsoever, I’m not totally turned off by the VFX that involves large hands, monstrous heads, and opening fissures to be composited into the frame along with the actors and there’s an entertaining blend of the two images that so ridiculously bad, it’s good. 

Wild Eye Releasing picks up “Day of the Wicked” for DVD release that’s been written onto a MPEG2 encoded, 720p standard resolution, DVD5 and presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  “Day of the Wicked’s” digital image is clean, no surprise, but the what’s more amazing is the detail comes over nicely, especially on facial features and the dilapidated schoolhouse structure.  In appraising facial features, the contours are greatly defined, sweat has isolating gleaming that doesn’t spread, and all the hair, pore, and distinct facial molecules are evident as well as their foreign bodies, such as piercings.  The visual effects are the only exception to mastering details overall as they’ve been manipulated into the frame and can provide a blurry integration when in composite action. The uncompressed LPCM Stereo 2.0 is ample but not as refined with a subtle crackling breakage in the higher dialogue and action.  Dialogue renders good with clarity but struggles within the hierarchy as the soundtrack can be absorbent.  Not a ton of opportunity for depth as much of the narrative is held inside the old schoolhouse, which does manage flexing some echo here and there, and the range is plentiful between the composited effects busting out of the ground, walls, and ceilings with a few roaring exclamations from the demonic creatures.  The only downside is there no punchy impact to these effects, limited by the dual channel output.  There are no option subtitles.  Essentially, the Wild Eye Releasing is feature-only except for a trailer for others in the Wild Eye Releasing catalogue.  “Day of the Wicked” is not rated, has a runtime of 97 minutes, and has region free playback.

Last Rites: A remake of a film that was already pulling heavy influence from a cult classic. It’s enough to make your head spin like a Kandarian demon. “Day of the Wicked” doesn’t break the mold or redefine the narrative and is pretty careless with it but horror is supposed to be fun, inspiring, and outrageous and the Cousin Brothers check all three boxes.

“Day of the Wicked” Now on DVD!

EVIL Dances Naked the Night Away! “Orgy of the Dead 2” reviewed! (MVD Visual / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Get in on the “Orgy of the Dead 2” on Blu-ray!

The Emperor of the dead and his Princess of the Night return from the dead to behold entertainment from the beyond.  As the Emperor sits on his graveside throne, his lap-seated Princess announces the lineup of dancing deceased, half naked women in a seduction of debauchery and death.  If the Emperor is not entertained, nor turned on, he damns their souls to Hell forever!  Four teens, on their way to the graveyard for sex and drugs amongst the dead, crash their car after some distracting roadhead, killing one of them in absent of a seatbelt.  As they search the graveyard for a living soul for help, they stumble upon the Emperor’s variety of groovy vixen and are captured to witness their dance of the dead.  As the show becomes more and more sordid, not all of the prisoners feel turned off by the show that creeps closer to their doom and their dawn.  

If you’re deeply knowledgeable of cult movies, have a familiarity with Ed Wood Jr. films, and have a genuine affinity for really schlocky horror and eroticism, you may have once in your life experienced the 1965 nudie-cuties erotic horror “Orgy of the Dead” that danced the graveside night away with topless stripteases challenged to entertain the Emperor of the Dead to avoid eternal damnation.  “Plan 9 from Outer Space” and “Jail Bait” filmmaker Edward D. Wood Jr. penned the then controversial and provocative script with Stephen C. Apostolof debuting his directorial effort, who then went on to do a number of exploitation pictures, such as “College Girls,” “The Snow Bunnies,” and “Five Loose Women.” The film’s rights were obtained from the Apostolof family by Andrew J. Chambers, who’s credentials followed a similar subgenre to his 1965 predecessors with “Babezilla vs the Zombie Whorde” and “Lust, Magic, and the Witches’ Sabbath.”  Chambers’s goal was to create a sequel, simply entitled “Orgy of the Dead 2” that brought back the Emperor, Princess of the Night, and a slew of scantily cladded undead women to burlesque the night away.  Chambers writes, directs, and produces the 2026 release alongside co-producer Stephen Apostolof’s son, Chrisotpher, under Chambers independent production company, HojBob Productions, and was partially crowdfunded under Indigogo.com, achieving an approx. $3,700 in pledges.

Obviously, the 60-year span between the two films doesn’t see the return of Jeron Criswell back as the Emperor (died 1982), Fawn Silver as the Black Ghoul (long retired and left pictures altogether), or Pat Barrington and William Bates as the stumbling lost couple Shirley and Bob.  Instead, the sequel features new talent in the principal parts as Mike Fantastik dons the undead ruler of darkness as the Emperor who sits on his throne to judge the decaying dancers.  Fantastik is no Criswell but the indie rapper from Nebraska brings his own licentious flair to the character by blatantly reading from cue cards just off screen.  Princess of the Night is played by pinup model Penny Aphrodite (“Pigshit”) that does resemble a bit of Fawn Silver’s Gothicism in looks and mannerisms.  The duo of Bob and Shirley are replaced with a quartette, or a pair of couples, who wreck their car after roadhead sends their car careening into the bushes near a graveyard.  Nick Somers, Adam Peltier, Jaymie Schroeder (“The Devil’s Dancers”), and Jessa Flux (“Debbie Does Demons”) are the new captured and witnesses to the Emperor’s sordid dance space of judgement.  Flux has established herself as a rising scream queen by integrating herself into any and all-types of horror films in a very unselective manner and with “Orgy of the Dead 2,” her character closely recalls other Flux’s roles of a sexed-up hot chick, making her Cindy performance not that stand out, but in contrasts, there’s an omission of emotional guilt and anger compared to the others tied to a staked crosses as they watch the perversion and death unfold.  The dancers a motley of alternate women and unabashed topless stripteasers between Stephanie Love, Bobbi Jo, Mercy Andersen, Tina Mazing, Katie Kadaver, Maia Thomas, Naomi Webb, Kaisa Neal, and Mae Devour with Michael E. Ross, Clint Beaver, Tony Kimball, Zdenek Voprada, and Morgan Molck as the Emperor’s creatures of the night. 

If any of you readers have ever seen the 1965 “Orgy of the Dead,” you’ll find the modern-day sequel to be not really a sequel in the traditional sense but more like a remake.  There’s no firm connection to the original production with Chambers bringing new nudie-cuties to the dance on the graves, a mixed soundtrack, and a totally different perverted vibe that’s cruder than it is implied to accommodate the time period in which the film is made.  Apostolof’s “Orgy of the Dead” had no plot in the traditional sense in what was more of an erotic, burlesque shindig in the middle of ghoulish-driven cemetery and, to be frank, the whole concept didn’t exactly leave an ecstatic and an aesthetic taste in my mouth with its boring static evolution further into the runtime.  I get it.  Times change, movies change, and taste change and Apostolof’s “Orgy of the Dead” might have been the hot ticket punched for some sleazy gawkers but in the early 2000s, when “Orgy of the Dead” made it to VHS, the novel idea just fell hard like a rock sinking to the bottom of a lake.  Chamber’s sequel, following the same design as the original, produces the same effect with its timeless homage to Apostolof’s original and, while that’s honorable, Chambers didn’t reinvent the wheel, he just bedazzled it with different kinks and coarser content.  Product looks even cheaper than the original on its measly $5-$7,000 budget that can only afford cardboard structures and tombstones, a glue on prosthetics, and simple in-laid practical effects.  Plenty of heart with really no soul, “Orgy of the Dead 2” is about as lifeless as the undressing undead. 

From Hojbob Productions and MVD Visual, “Orgy of the Dead 2” is a blast form the past done in contemporary times now on Blu-ray home video.  The unrated, region free release doesn’t have a lot of technical disclosure, but the release is AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, onto a 25GB BD-R with the bruised colored disc underbelly, suggesting a commercial writeable disc and muted colored, textured DVD label on top.  Presented in a 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio, the indie production isn’t at the summit of quality and, in fact, is rather low with poor visibility (aka lighting), compression blights such as banding and splotches, and an anemic color saturation.  The former of the three can be accepted to work in the sequel’s advantageous favor that keeps the hazy graveyard cemetery dim as possible and not be evident of key lighting that’ll throw off whatever authenticity “Orgy of the Dead 2” may possess.  The audio is an English Stereo 2.0, uncompressed but not reigned in with it’s noise static when volume levels overload with intense decibels.  Dialogue is clear but varies in strength in part to recording mic placement that can’t capture more than one person standing adjacent to the person next to the mic. The soundtrack by Aaron Gum is perhaps the best with a variety of musical genres from carnivalesque to rhapsody that loosely fits the dance number.  Special features include a making-of featurette with Andrew J. Chambers, a behind-the-scenes featurette with raw footage of takes and setups, actor Adam Peltier’s ramblings, a director and actor feature length commentary track, and the original trailer.  Released in a standard Blu-ray Amray case, “Orgy of the Dead 2” homages its predecessor with a slapped together package design of a blown up still from the actual movie and used as the front cover face.  The sleeve art is also one-sided.  Inside in the insert section, there’s a slick and nicely illustrated retroesque comic book front cover insert of the main characters.  It’s unfortunately uncredited.  The narrowly hour film, coming in at 65 minutes, is the perfect size for the BD-R capabilities.

Last Rites: If a fan of the original “Orgy of the Dead,” the sequel doesn’t stray into new territory with dancing corpses and a killer soundtrack, but don’t expect a novel sequel in this ready-made remake.

Get in on the “Orgy of the Dead 2” on Blu-ray!

A Trio of EVIL of Italian-Inspired Violence. “Gialli, Guns, and Gore!: The Brutal Films of Darren Ward” reviewed! (Treasured Films / 3-Disc Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Brutal Films of Darren Ward Are a Must See! Buy the Set Here!

Walker, a former SAS turned hitman mercenary, accepts a job by a white-collar narcotics kingpin to snuff out a rival organization for control over cocaine distribution territories only to be betrayed by his employee, targeted himself for elimination.  Going into hiding to recover after narrowly escape with injuries, Walker’s best and only friend is caught, tortured, and slaughtered to draw him out.  There’s nothing left for Walker to do other than to mercilessly wipe them off the face of the Earth.  In another thrilling tale, low-level hoodlum Mitchell steals 100K from another low-level hoodlum holding the money for a mob boss.  Planning to use the money to fund his daughter’s return from a comatose state, Mitchell must first outrun and outsmart the mob who are hunting him down, but nothing will get in the way of saving his little girl.  Lastly, Walker returns to the fold having retired permanently from the mercenary life and is now living the married life with a child on the way.  When a group of lowlife henchmen decide to joyride murder and posthumously rape his wife and leave him for dead, all Walker wants is thoughtless vengeance and he must go through an entire crime syndicate to get to those responsible for destroying all that he loves.  Unfortunately, the underlings of a ruthless Russian mob boss, who is trying to tie up loose ends before the police and investigators come after him, are protected by a small arsenal.

From 1997 to 2019, British filmmaker Darren Ward produced the Fury Trilogy, a 3-film series of violent crime thrillers that harked back to the days of the Italian poliziotteschi subgenre, a brutally violent series of crime thrillers released between 1960 and 1980 that saw themes of cruel hearted antagonists, a justifiable hero hellbent on revenge, and the up-close-and-personal violence and, often times, gore.  “Sudden Fury” (1997), “A Day of Violence” (2010), and “Beyond Fury” (2019) are the titles and while not all three wholeheartedly connect in the series and in story, they share the cruel characteristics and the visceral animosity that has lurked in the Italian shadows for way too long.  From Italy to the United Kingdom, Ward resurrects the short-lived classic exploitation subgenre having written-and-directed all three years over the course of 20 years, and maybe even before that as Ward wrote-and-directed the 1994 short film “Bitter Vengeance” that preluded the Fury Trilogy with a foundational base concept for subsequent feature films.  Ward produces the films under his company Giallo Films.

The 1997 “Sudden Fury” is a showcase of mid-90’s nostalgia propped up by vast, electric, and eccentric cast and characters that spin a web of complexity between two gangs, one hitman, and a whole lot of vengeful vendettas.  Nick Rendell plays the sought after former SAS soldier turned mercenary hitman Walker with full zeal for the 80’s action star by carrying a reputation that proceeds the character.  Rendell’s portrayal is often aloof as Walker stands in between two gangs and their lack of integrity as they squabble over the cocaine dominion, but when the last standing gang tries to hunt him down, killing his one and only friend in the process, Walker takes the fight to them guns blazing.  Rendell also carries over his performance to the 2010 film, the unconnected “A Day of Violence,” but in different shoes as Mitchell, a father, husband, and hoodlum in desperation mode and doing whatever he can to live and breathe inside the context of mob land complexity for a large sum of money.  Rendell goes form lone wolf to a man with dependent in a totally different side of character in Mitchell when compared to Walker when considering how the compassion attribute.  Now, Walker returns for “Beyond Fury” but Nick Rendell does not return to the role as the 2019 film sees Nick Roberts filling the mercenary shoes.  Also, this time around, Walker is given compassion, compassion for revenge!  In his retirement, his family is murdered arbitrarily – as if ill-fated living a previous life of violence and death – and vows revenge at his own expense to harm taking on an entire organized criminal organization, ran by the unforgiving “City of the Living Dead” and “Cannibal Ferox” actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice.  Radice is also one of the only other connective tissues between the last two films but in different roles with opposing significance with more prominence as the chief villain in “Beyond Fury” as well as Victor D. Thorn in various capacities in each three films.  Other notable cast members from across all three films include David Warbeck (“The Beyond”) in “Sudden Fury” and Dani Thompson (“Axe to Grind”) with Andy Ranger, Paul Murphy, Christopher Fosh, Steve Humprhies, Tina Barnes, Helena Martin, Tina Barnes, Joanna Finata, Harold Gasnier, Gary Baxter, Dan van Husen, Glenn Salvage.

Darren Ward’s Fury Trilogy is roughly the same model copied over one another at roughly a decade and half apart, yet each individual storyline evokes a different impression as each has unique attributes.  “Sudden Fury” surrounds itself in sociopathy, drug trade, and gang war.  “A Day of Violence” has themes of devotion, parenthood, and blinding greed.  “Beyond Fury” spores retribution, justice, and loyalty.  Other than the reprisal of the Walker character in the first 1997 and last 2019 film, the real only aspects that connect the series together is the unflinching and visceral violence fueled one major motif in all of Ward’s movies, organized crime syndicates versus the single willed warrior.  Ward has no qualms with showing violence front and center in the most graphic way possible and without it being overly gratuitous or at least blending the excessive blood and gore action into the moment that it hides in plain sight.  The effects on all three films go hard under Alastair Vardy who did the SFX work on all three films.  Vardy is a major effects artist as of today, having worked on such films as “World War Z,” “Kick-Ass 2,” and last years “28 Years Later” and that speaks volumes to his dedication toward director Darren Ward and his three films produced on a lesser budget with mostly genre and cult actors.  Ward’s scripts are heavily dynamic and can become complex with betrayals, twists, and a fair amount of unpredictability in the grand schemes of either drug wars, money disputes, and damage control.  “Sudden Fury” and “Beyond Fury” has an easy, 2-part character arc for Walker but there often feels like a missing piece to his character backstory, especially when his stories are over 20 years apart and Ward doesn’t profoundly piece those missing years together with much effort.  Yet, through Ward’s camera cleverness and storytelling, there is plenty to like and easily digest through multiple camera angles of a scene, interesting shot setups, and the close and personal nature of strong violence.

UK distributor Treasured Films rolls out the bloody red carpet for Darren Ward’s Fury Trilogy with a brand new 3-Disc Blu-ray set entitled the “Gialli, Guns and Gore” set that is region free for all to enjoy the carnage.  The limited-edition boxset comes with newly remastered and graded scans for its grand worldwide Blu-ray debut on “Sudden Fury” and UK Blu-ray debut for “A Day of Violence” and “Beyond Fury.”  “Sudden Fury” is scanned from the original SOV material and into a 720HD, leaving a lot of room for unfortunate and unable improvement but this transfer is pretty damn good that retains that shot-on-video, interlacing aesthetic and muted colors.  There are no evident issues of overly heated color tones or tracking lines from magnetic tape deterioration and presents the best possible image with soft details in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, though the back cover states all features are in a widescreen.  “A Day of Violence” and “Beyond Fury,” having been digitally filmed over 13-years later, are in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio with cleaner image resolution that looks neat a pin with granular details surrounding skin and textures, a slight slate color grading with hues being diffused and saturated in balance, and offers a focal depth to enhance quality.  The English language audio format is an uncompressed DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 that packs a wallop front and center.  The Fury Trilogy has immense range of gunfire, fisticuffs, explosions, and car races that run the onomatopoeia length of an action bundle with clear dialogue that’s more vital in the last two films with isolating features and more muted in the first with more integration around surrounding elements and electronic interference from the implemented equipment.  There’s not a ton of depth in either film that relies heavily on making an impact with the ultraviolence and caffeinated action in the front role of a dual channel that does have a decent separation and isolation of dialogue and action.  English subtitles are available on all three releases.  “Sudden Fury” special features include an audio commentary by Darren Ward and star Nick Rendell, a retrospective documentary Sudden Fury:  12 years On, a retrospective making-of interview with Darren Ward The Crime Trilogy:  Part 1:  Sudden Fury, deleted scenes and outtakes, a BTS special effects make-up reel, Ward’s 1994 precursing short films “Bitter Vengeance,” 1993’s “Blue Fear,” and 1992’s “Paura Il Diavolo,” an image gallery, and archived trailers.  On “A Day of Violence,” a feature length documentary of Making-Of a Day of Violence, an interview with actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice, an audio commentary with Ward and star Nick Rendell, the second Darren ward retrospective documentary on the making-of The Crime Trilogy Part 2:  A Day of Violence, The Crime Trilogy:  The In-Between Years looks at Darren Ward’s short film “Nightmares” from 2004, deleted scenes and outtakes, the hardcore trailer, a no-so-hardcore soft trailer, a Soprano trailer, short film “Nightmares,” an audio commentary for ”Nightmares” with Ward, and an image gallery fill out the special features for the second feature.  The third feature’s special features conclude with another audio commentary with Darren Ward and Nick Rendell, The Crime Trilogy Part 3:  Beyond Fury retrospective documentary of the making-of the film, Chainsaw Fun featurette, the Gasworks Visual Effects reel, The Crime Trilogy props used in the film tour, the Ward 2025 short film “Passion,” an audio commentary for “Passion,” trailers, and an image gallery for that short film.  While the encoded special features are impressive, the physical presence of the Treasured Films release is equally as eye-catching with a rigid slipbox containing frontal artwork by Uncle Frank Productions, three clear Blu-ray Amaray cases, each with new, reversible sleeve art for all three titles, and snug inside the slipbox with them is a 31-page booklet with color stills, release acknowledgements, and essay by Tom Lee Rutter – Furious:  The Story of the John Woo of Southampton..  All films are UK certified 18 for strong bloody violence, gore, sexual violence, very strong language, and strong sex.  The runs are as followed:  “Sudden Fury” 103 minutes, “A Day of Violence” 116 minutes, and “Beyond Fury” 117 minutes. 

Last Rites: The “Gialli, Guns, and Gore” set is Darren Ward’s unflinching frenetic violence now glorified in a beautifully curated Treasured Films package!

The Brutal Films of Darren Ward Are a Must See! Buy the Set Here!

Two Van Damme’s Take on Twice the EVIL! “Double Impact” reviewed! (MVD Rewind Collection / 4K UHD and Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Double Impact” 4K UHD and Blu-ray Will Having You Seeing Double the Damme!

The assassination of their parents separates infant twins Chad and Alex from Hong Kong to different parts of the world, living very different lives.  Chad trains Karate and stretching while living the high, comfortable life in Los Angeles with this uncle while Alex, abandoned at a covenant orphanage, grows up to be a street-savvy importer of illegal and luxury goods.  They’re reunited in Hong Kong by Chad’s uncle, who’s not their uncle at all but their father’s former bodyguard and close friend, to bring down a criminal organization collaborating with their parent’s killer who orchestrated the hit with the Chinese triad.  Outmanned, outgunned, and at odds with each other’s different persona, Alex and Chad must find common ground to stand on to fix the wrong done them, to inflict payback for their murdered parents, and claim his stolen legacy, an underwater passage way between Hong Kong and mainland China, as their own in observance of their birthright from what they’re engineer father had built.

If one Jean-Claude Van Damme wasn’t enough to handle, try your hand at double the Van Damme!  “Double Impact” is the first film Van Damme gets to show his range inside the context of martial arts action film and to break, ever so delicately, the typecast he’s been filled repeatedly to perform by taking on converse brothers.  The 1991 action-thriller with comedic morsels was shot in Hong Kong, one of a handful of films the now 65-year Belgium native did in country, coming in between “Bloodsport” and “Knock Off,”  with years in between, and is written-and-directed by Sheldon Lettich with cowritten credits by Van Damme as well.  “Double Impact” is the sophomore collaboration between Lettich and Van Damme and the two have worked on a number of project since the film’s release, such as “Perfect Target” and “The Order.”  Van Damme also produces the film alongside Paul Michael Glaser, Ashok Amritraj, and the one and only Michael Douglas under his co-founded company Stone Group Pictures (“Flatliners”) in association with Vision International. 

“Bloodsport” Van Damme pulls double duty with ying-yang characters Chad and Alex.  Chad’s an easy-going, well-dressed, expensive-taste, slightly naïve, student of Karate who’s living comfortably in L.A. while brother Alex with slick back hair, leather attire, greasier-appearance and cynical attitude has him pegged as more Hong Kong street smart in his transgressor affairs as a illegal importer.  As far as exhibiting the desired range goal, Van Damme does provide the persona separation to make Chad and Alex individuals but he’s still playing characters he’s been in previous films and the only difference between Chad and Alex is their hair styles.  To ensure their differences, the story is woven for them to compete each other a little bit with evoking some jealous around Alex with the fear Chad may still his woman, Danielle, played by the tall and beautifully blonde “King of New York” actress Alonna Shaw.  Fueled by alcohol and a wild imagination, a wedge drives Alex to view his brother as more feminine than him and shows it with pejorative name calling and brotherly spat violence while in an intoxicated schoolyard tiff.  I will say that one the many glaring plot holes between the two characters is both have the same fighting style, which is Van Damme’s kick heavy Shotokan karate, and while that fits Chad’s backstory, it does not fit Alex who was too busy selling stolen cars rather than learning Karata in a studio.  Geoffrey Lewis (“Night of the Comet,” “The Devil’s Rejects”) dons the forced parental role as Chad and Alex’s former friend and bodyguard Frank who must reunite and rekindle the twins’ harmony with shared, common foe.  That foe, or rather foes, being corrupt businessman and British socialite Nigel Grifith (Alan Scarfe, “Murder by Phone”) and Hong Kong triad boss Raymond Zhang (Philip Chan, “Bloodsport”).  However, the real villains of the story are more interesting and standout with Bolo Yueng (“Bloodsport”) as the scarred face hitman and brute enforcer Moon and six-time Ms. Olympia Corinna Everson as a muscular henchwoman. 

Though Van Damme essentially plays the same person, I wouldn’t necessary dub “Double Impact” a replica of his previous work as it does mix up the narrative formula with dual roles with a one-half antihero theme and the scenes themselves where both Chad and Alex are in together, face unobstructed, present, and forward, are done exceptionally well for a late 90’s production with little-to-no seam and coloring imbalance or weird facing angles from Chad or Alex looking at one another – often times it’ll appear one character is looking at something totally offscreen instead of the appearance of looking at themselves.  The action is also palpable and fun to watch Van Damme go through the motions of making the opposition look foolish with his grunted elbows and roundhouse jumpkicks but there’s really no decent opposition for him in the choreographed mix.  Aside from Bolo Yeung, all the other major playing villains are no real equal match against Van Damme, not even Corinna Everson, who’s a physical and perceived threat, doesn’t provide the satisfactory fight in her brief combat interaction with the Muscles from Brussels.  The fight and action are also more grounded in reality unlike Van Damme’s last Hong Kong venture earlier in the decade in “Knock Off” that had an implausible cartoony design to it’s nonstop physicality.  There are no high-flying rope acts or escaping the inescapable devastation case by nano-explosives; instead, “Double Impact” is truly a fair 1v1 with gunplay and martial arts doing most of the heavy lifting and anything else that’s outrageous is left at the door. 

MVDVisual releases “Double Impact” on a new 4K and Blu-ray dual formatted release on their Rewind Collection sublabel.  As a part of the 4K LaserVision Collection, that emulates the mock trimmings of the antiquated but still celebrated LaserDisc video format, the MVD release 4K is HVEC encoded with 2160p ultra-high definition HDR – DolbyVision – onto a BD100 with the standard Blu-ray encoded with AVC with 1080p resolution onto a BD50.  Presented in it’s original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the new, director’s approved 4K scan and restoration comes from a 16-bit scan of the original camera negative and looks pretty flawless with image presentation, immersive depth, skin and fabric textures and tones, inky negative space, and a diffused color palette that’s mediumly saturated, slightly muted for a harder, gritty appearance.  Neither format shows areas of concern with compression artefacts in a clean transfer and decoding.  The main audio track is an uncompressed English 2.0 Stereo.  The dual channel audio has enough impact to provide a wide berth of action points with the kick and punch added hits, dialogue is clean and unobstructed even though Van Damme’s heavy Belgium accent which seems more egregious in this feature, and the soundtrack’s your staple culture blend of a Jan Hammer synth-pop rock and traditional notes of Hong Kong influence.  Depth is limited as well in stereo that front loads the action and dialogue with not a terribly immersive ambient track of a bustling Hong Kong city that would be the chief spatial and directional culprit for depth.  UHD special features are limited due to space and, in fact, the 4K disc is feature only.  All your extras are on the standard Blu-ray disc, including a near hour long Making-of featurette segmented in parts I and II that provides retrospective interviews from cast and crew, such as Jean-Claude Van Damme, director Sheldon Lettich, fight coordinator Peter Malota, producer Ashok Amritraj, and more.  The bonus content continues with director a short Sheldon Lettich interview Anatomy of a Scene, a behind-the-scenes featurette with Van Damme interviews archived from 1991, deleted and extended scenes, a raw footage B-roll with behind-the-scenes moments, television promotional clips, and an electronic press kit (EPK) that contains more interviews with Van Damme, Moshe Diamant, and Charles Layton.  The Rewind Collection always comes with a substantial exterior style that begins with the black background of a O-ring slipcover that mirrors the crinkled sleeve of a LaserDisc and has the original poster/home media art of the “brothers” Van Damme.  The black 4K UHD Amaray case has the same front cover image sans mock crinkles with the discs inside pressed with LaserDisc appearance imagery on the UHD and VHS texture imagery on the Blu-ray.  There’s also a folded mini-poster of the slipcover image tucked inside.  The 17th title on the Rewind Collection also has a reversible sleeve of the unwrinkled image.  Rated R for strong violence, sexuality, and langue, “Double Impact” has a runtime of 110 minutes and is region A locked.

Last Rites: You need double the media formats to enjoy double the Jean-Claude Van Damme in “Double Impact!” Double time it to get your copy in stores now!

“Double Impact” 4K UHD and Blu-ray Will Having You Seeing Double the Damme!

EVIL’s Duality May Be More Than What Meets the Eye. “The Ugly” reviewed! (Unearthed Classics / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Ugly” Limited Edition Blu-ray Now Available!

A famed female psychologist is requested to work the possible acquittal case of a serial killer named Simon Cartwright and understand his possible motive for slashing his victim’s throats at seemingly random.  Unscrupulously tormented by a pair of odd orderlies, Simon Cartwright calmly carries himself as a humble, articulate, and friendly conversationalist and confessed killer with a darker side, an ugly side that drives him to kill at will.  Cartwright gives her the anecdotal trappings of his kills that prove to be unprovoked and unsystematic from a side of him he can’t ignore.  Confounded by this, the psychologist pushes him to brink for an exact reason, one Cartwright keeps buried deep inside his subconscious that may or may not be supernaturally driven.  As Cartwright’s past continues to haunt him and with the psychologist assertive herself into his psyche, the dangerous method of analyzing criminal behavior won’t stop a plagued killer from killing again as his next victim might just be sitting across from him in the cross-examination room.  

Themes of split personality, past abuse and trauma, and the limited authority of control course through “The Ugly’s” veins like acid, sweltering with tension and ready to burn a hole through the safety of custody and storytelling once the twisted truth is told.  New Zealand filmmaker Scott Reynolds debuted with his feature length film back in 1997. Reynolds also wrote the script that kept an intimate approach between killer and doctor, kept audiences guessing the supernatural aspect, and made taut the lead-up moments filled with human tenderness that went into subsequent violence that painted a portrait of a conflicted killer afflicted by derangement that might not be his own.  Shot in Auckland, New Zealand, “The Ugly” is a production of Essential Films with funds from the New Zealand Film Commission and is produced by “Jack be Nimble” producer Jonathan Dowling.

In a vague mirroring of Dr. Hannibal Lector and FBI Clarice Starling from “Silence of the Lambs,” there’s still the intention to understand the mind of a serial killer.  In the Clarice-like role is a civilian, a psychologist to be more precise, one that has received recognition to get the most dangerous criminals released from incarceration, is Dr. Karen Schumaker, played by Rebecca Hobbs (“Lost Souls”) that would be her biggest lead role in the New Zealand film market.  Opposite her, across the table mostly and chained to a chair, is Paolo Rotondo with a cold stare and a handsome face that doesn’t exactly say I’m a serial killer.  When graced with a prosthetic that makes half his face appear melted or scared in fleeting glimmers or reflections, scenes that often felt needed more attention or a longer say, that’s when Rotondo could exact his intimidation upon the viewer as the true monster, as Cartwright has referred to himself in more words.  Instead, Cartwright’s a clean shaven, well-dressed, and respectable Patrick Batman type without the three-piece suit and the Huey Lewis and the News obsession and not as King’s British and as quirky in his demeanor as Anthony Hopkins as Lector.  Both characters fall and fail hard to the supporting case of the two orderlies and their employing resident psychologist.  Sporting dreads and walking with confidence like a WWE wrestling being introduced, Paul Glover (“The Locals”) has more flavor in his mostly stoic intimidating orderly performance alongside his more animated and ragdoll movement buddy in Chris Graham (“Moby Dick”) as the two mistreat the Cartwright with disdain.  Their employer, Dr. Marlowe, has a snooty creepiness about him that’s akin to being a mad scientist-type that’s fits into the goon orderly dynamic with Roy Ward (“Perfect Creature”) at the helm.  Darien Takle and Vanessa Byrnes costar as chief supports. 

‘The Ugly” is certainly a child of the 1990s with that glossy gleam without it a lens flare spark of digital anamorphic.  The aesthetic matches the subject matter with dreary, cold, and gloomy nu metal nuisances, teetering on the edge of being also grungy.  Editor Wayne Cook’s transitions and cuts are indicative of the era in filmmaking with whooshing transitions and flashes of disorienting cuts, such as white outs or seamless segues.  This techniques also translates into Simon Cartwright’s headspace with acute and fleeting glimpses of his mental state visualized into the real word, or it’s the real world sheathed by a layer from beyond the grave, but either way his perspective quickly provides a glimpse into his reason for killing, his duplicitous degradation into insanity, and that it can be projected to others outside the exclusive rights of his person.  Most of the story is told anecdotally through Cartwright’s perspective and as storyteller, his events are muddled by his own struggle with killing that becomes more evident as the story progresses.  What’s most interesting about Reynold’s film is it’s reality bending to keep the audience engaged as he puts the psychologist character, Dr. Karen Schumaker for those who forgot, right into the frame of his story as a third party speaking directly to Cartwright and only Cartwright can see and hear, but she’s implemented naturally as if sitting at the table with the storied characters or being a part of a three-way conversation that but not truly.  Between these style characteristics and the narrative’s odd macabre, along with the deep black, sour crude oil shaded blood, “The Ugly” is grimly beautiful with visuals and stimulating to watch. 

Unearthed Films, under their Unearthed Classics sublabel, provide a new Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release to the table.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD50 has stored on it a 4K restoration from the film’s original 35mm interpositive and looks neat as a pin presented in it’s 1.77:1 widescreen aspect ratio, rendered with a well-diffused color palette of a lighter blues and grays that contrast starkly with the deeper black blood in a semblance of a dystopian or alternate reality in circa late 90s to early 2000s films.  Saturation is copious with all colors and the details are sharp mostly in the peripheral setting with the focal objects having be defined nicely but there is some textural loss on the skin and clothing under its higher contrast.  The audio formats within are an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 Stereo of the original theatrical audio and a relatively uncommon 4.0 DTS-HD MA that caters to the side and back channels rather than a central output and a LFE subwoofer, so the track is not as deep and resonating and it discerns as such with more range and less punchy impact that encompasses at the dialogue, ambience, Foley, and soundtrack excellently considering.  Dialogue is clean and clear without obstruction or touchups to the original audio files.  English SHD and Subtitles are available for selection.  The collector’s edition contents include an isolated score from composer Victoria Kelly (“Black Sheep,” “The Locals”), a 1997 radio interview from New Zealand with writer-director Scott Reynolds, an audio commentary with chief principal actors Paolo Rotondo and Rebecca Hobbs, Reynolds’ early 90’s short films “A Game With No Rules” and “The M1nute,” “The Ugly Visual Essay” compares “The Ugly” to true crime serial killers of reality, a photo gallery, and the original theatrical trailer.  The physical presence of “The Ugly” is anything but with it’s beautiful packaged design, beginning with the commissioned Slipcover cover art that wholly embodies the essence of the story, rather than being an exploitative mislead, by Scott Jackson of Monsterman Graphic.  The clear Blu-ray Amaray case has a reversible sleeve with the same Jackson art with the reverse containing the film’s original one-sheet artwork.  Inside is a 6-page booklet a pair of essays by Jason Jenkins along with monochrome and colored stills.  The disc is also pressed with a tense hunting scene as well.  The 18th Blu-ray title for the Unearthed Films’ sublabel is region A locked, not rated, and has a runtime of 93 minutes.

Last Rites: As far as understanding the mind of a New Zealand serial killer, Scott Reynold’s “The Ugly” depth charges reality with not only a promising supernatural layer but also a strange world these characters live and act against that invigorates a rather talkative and anecdotal story with eccentric and uncomfortable personalities that rival the killer himself.

“The Ugly” Limited Edition Blu-ray Now Available!